Chapter 49: The blessing gone
Ziad would come by in a few minutes to pick Vlad up, as he'd agreed to try the communal area once more for New Year's Eve. Not that the patients would stay up until midnight, but the spirit of it all – of celebrating something, of gathering for more than just a meal – mattered, and perhaps...
Vlad hadn't been sick in weeks, except for a low fever around Christmas. He'd almost finished his business thesis, too – one or two additional months of work and he should be able to send it to the university, get something out of these years stuck in the clinic.
Perhaps it was time to try and socialize once again.
Just... get used to other people.
The director had said he'd drop by, too. That he'd come to Vlad's room even if Vlad didn't go to the communal area, because he wanted to congratulate him on getting better – on, perhaps, getting closer to leaving the clinic for good.
That said, it would be much better if Vlad could show Bianco that yes, he could get out and see other people. That he wasn't only "doing better".
Vlad closed his notebook and stretched longly, pushing off the aches that came from having sat in the same chair for close to three hours.
Last day of December, 1986. Vlad was twenty-five, nearing twenty-six years old. It had been more than thirty and one months since the accident, almost thirty-two. Getting closer to three years.
He might get out of the clinic in 1987, and 1987 was right around the corner.
He could do this. He could learn to live again.
Right, time to pick something to wear for New Year's Eve – like, putting on shoes. Vlad didn't usually bother with those when he stayed in his room, but he wasn't going to go barefooted outside.
As Vlad stood up from the chair, the room swam around him and he had to catch himself on the table, blinking.
Thinking of it, he wasn't sure of the last time he'd eaten something. Ziad had brought him lunch, of course, the nurse always did – except for his days off – but Vlad didn't actually remember what it'd been, and he had the vague feeling he hadn't felt very hungry. He might not have finished his plate, come to think of it.
...He'd need to be careful until he got to the communal area, then. And, in general. It would be stupid to get sicker all over again because he wasn't eating correctly.
After all, normal people needed to eat – and Vlad wasn't an exception.
Okay. Clothes, shoes. Also, checking himself in the mirror, because it felt like there was a pimple under his chin and Vlad had been distracted by it all afternoon. It itched a bit, just enough to poke at his focus – and Vlad had had regular acne while growing up, he knew it was best not to touch but it was also difficult not to.
Shoes and a shirt under his arm, he cautiously entered the bathroom with a hand on the wall – he really, really should have eaten more.
Once Vlad was done tying his shoes, he turned to look in the mirror and check that pimple.
look
The face across the wall blanched violently, making the point of dull pink glow under the pale skin even more obvious.
ah
ectoplasm stuck under the skin death lurking under life obscured but obvious
The mirror could only show him a glowing the pink brighter more obvious more inhuman than ever pimple right there under his jaw.
no no no no no no no
Vlad's head swam again and something acidic forced its way up his throat you thought you could pretend didn't you, vomit clogging his taste buds until he violently threw up in the sink.
one single little pimple and yet
there was no denying what it meant
Vlad's throat hurt and tears formed in the corners of his eyes as he retched by his reflection a pathetic mess of dangling gray hair and sweat-covered skin a corpse passing itself as living a lie embedded in too-corrupted flesh.
When the heaving ceased and he could blink away the tears look at yourself look at what ignoring the thruth did to you my poor boy my dear child Vladislav there's no point keeping your eyes closed to the truth, the man the lying cadaver in the mirror looked so much worse than a moment before: it was still a single pimple glowing full of his ectoplasm but it wasn't only the pimple. It was the waxy sheen to his skin, the disheveled hair.
The pink threads on his vomit-dripping chin.
you knew what would happen if you stopped using your ectoplasmic energy
He'd been doing better.
it did last longer than before but
here was the limit pretending could reach before the truth would force itself out
The reflection's eyes betrayed him, slowly turning scarlet in its whites.
He heard knocking on the bathroom's door, and then:
"Vlad, are you ready? The food will..."
The rest of Ziad's words disappeared behind the sound of Vlad's retching – there was only blood and ectoplasm left to throw up.